Some Oscar thoughts
I don’t really know why, but the show seemed a whole lot more compelling this year than other years. It wasn’t the set, which was ugly, non-glamorous and bluntly utilitarian, and it wasn’t that I knew anyone up for an award.
Maybe it was, as Ellen Degeneres noted, the international flavor of the thing. It seemed like less of a clubhouse kind of affair than usual, and the people who stuck out weird were the ones who treated it as such. All kinds of people from all over the world and all kinds of backgrounds are making movies these days, and their movies are quickly becoming better, and in some cases more popular, than what Hollywood is producing.
Or maybe, taking a cue from casting Ellen Degeneresas host, it’s that the show business community is finally going back to saying “Oh yeah, that’s right, we’re liberal, and we actually don’t have to apologize for it. We forgot about that for a moment. We’re the cool kids, the Washington guys are the jerks.” The routine with Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore was funny to me because I honestly half-suspected that Gore really was going to take the moment to announce his candidacy (although I’m glad he did not, at least not at a showbiz event). The only thing that would have made Gore’s presence more gratifying was if someone had referred to him as the President of the United States.
Maybe it was the montages offered on the various themes. It’s always baffled me how, for decades, so much of the Oscar broadcast is handed over to dance numbers. Why are we watching (bad) dance during a program dedicated to the art of film? The montages made me remember what I was watching this for, that I am part of (or at least witness to) a long artistic tradition, that greatness is possible in all times, and that there’s nothing wrong or shameful about wanting to be a filmmaker. It made me sit up and, involuntarily, name aloud the movies I’d seen of those referenced, and feel a lack where there were ones I hadn’t seen. It made me want to see more movies, which is, to say the least, not the usual effect of the Oscar broadcast.
Maybe it was that I felt like the movies being honored were worth being honored, and that the winners deserved their awards. There wasn’t a single moment where I felt “so-and-so got screwed” or “this is all political” (with the possible exception of Eddie Murphy losing to Alan Arkin). I preferred Pan’s Labyrinth to The Lives of Others, but I wouldn’t say that the latter movie, a gripping political drama, didn’t deserve to win. In fact, I’ll say the opposite: I’m glad that The Lives of Others won so that maybe people will go see it this weekend. I made a joke in an earlier post about how “West Bank Story” would win because it’s about Israel, but when I saw the actual clip I thought “Wow, that’s a great idea for a movie, I want to see that.”
Maybe it was my daughter Kit (4), who got caught up in the dresses, particularly the red number Jennifer Hudson wore during the Dreamgirls medley. “She’s bee-yoo-tee-full,” cooed Kit. Then when Beyonce came on, she said “Who’s that?” When I told her who was who, she thought for a moment and declared that both were “bee-yoo-tee-full,” but Jennifer Hudson was the most “bee-yoo-tee-full.”
Or maybe it was the bag of gourmet caramel corn that ate during the show. What the hell do they put in that stuff that makes it so you can’t stop eating it?
CONFIDENTIAL TO
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:
I know you have no plan of moving to LA, but if you do, you could probably make a living off of people mistaking you for Jackie Earle Haley. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
The King and Queen won, I am actually surprised about the first one.
I thought about your blog during that montage to how the screenwriter is depicted in movies. I guess Afleck was called in to present that because, uh, he’s won for screenplay before. In general, the one thing that came to my mind with the Israeli win, is that the guy was eloquent and impassioned with a sense of duty to speak out, and that was the closest the Oscars got to the spirit regarding any sense of it’s avowed liberalness. The rest was more along the lines of Lansing’s self-advertisment that everyone there gives to their power charities, or for God’s sake, actually taking Gore serious. Hey, run some old clips with Tipper talking about policing content…
It was a big night for royalty. Marie Antoinette won for costumes too. Maybe Americans are royalists at heart.
I forgot about that montage. That was great, I could have watched an hour-long version of that.
He was great, his was the speech that made me think “If I’m ever up there, I hope I give a speech like that.”
I took Gore plenty serious in 2000, and he’s only proven himself more worthy since then. Tipper notwithstanding.
“Tipper notwithstanding” is like saying “Hillary notwithstanding” and we all know how THAT went.
Not to get too earnest about this, but it seems pretty clear to me that Tipper Gore and Hillary Clinton are different people.
They both have one horrific similarity–> Tipper Gore, after hearing a Prince song about sex and mastrubation [Darling Nikki]- attempted to get a wide censorship on rock albums. Mrs. Clinton is attempting to do the same to video games right now because after an M rated game [GTA] had a secret sex scene you could unlock with a GameShark [a code system, like hacking into the game more or less] she began to do more or less the same.
Otherwise they’re very diffirent [oh, and also they’re both straw dolls], but they have that one horrid thing in common…
West Bank Story
“West Bank Story” is very funny, but it’s also very broad and plays kind of like an extended sketch, while the other nominees feel more like “real” films. I’m not surprised it won, though, because it’s probably the most memorable of the nominees.
Maybe it was my daughter Kit (4), who got caught up in the dresses, particularly the red number Jennifer Hudson wore during the Dreamgirls medley. “She’s bee-yoo-tee-full,” cooed Kit. Then when Beyonce came on, she said “Who’s that?” When I told her who was who, she thought for a moment and declared that both were “bee-yoo-tee-full,” but Jennifer Hudson was the most “bee-yoo-tee-full.”
I love your children. If they were politicians, I’d get citizenship just to vote for them.
Fewer things would make this father sadder than his children growing up to be politicians.
Frank Zappa claimed that the key piece of advice he gave to the children of the eighties that the best thing they could do is run for office and make change.
And those children are now running Congress.
Matt Groening’s hero was Zappa, and he went on to make the Simpsons!
Nah, those kids are 30. And in all realism, none of them are in congress.
I like to think one of them IS Obama…
And we all know Frank’s relationship to Tipper Gore and the P.R.M.C.
So what you’re saying is, a vote for Al Gore is like pissing on Frank Zappa’s grave.
Someone has to do something, Todd. If not now, when?
I’m looking through my book, and it looks like two weeks from now might be good.
Eeeeexxxccellent.
rubs hands together, as if plotting
If there’s one thing about this year’s Oscars, they felt much more human than ever before, and unapolegetically interesting. The shadow performers were badass, and easily trump any dance routine. And the ‘being unapolgetically liberal’ was also refreshing. Why should liberal be a curse word, and conservative a badge of honor? Bizarre…
Plus Gore’s film winning best song was pretty great, not to mention of course Scorsese’s win. Really, everyone also felt happy to be there. I remember Bill Murray losing the Oscar back in 2004 [I think…] and the absolute look of crushed disappointment he had. It was small, but it was nice to see none of the losers being too prissy. It felt more like a celebration than an odd competition…
As for Eddy Murphy… well… that’s what happens when you Don a fat suit… they should’ve shelved Norbit. Then they could’ve put down ‘And Starring Versatile Academy Award Winner Eddie Murphy as…’ then show the fat suit. Feh.
Cars losing to Happy Feet was pretty insanely unexpected… but that was what probably made this year interesting…
And seeing an 11 year old at the Oscars was just adorable…
Bob is way cuter than Jackie Earle Haley. And way less pedophilic. He does ride a cool little dirt bike around the local little league field though.
I don’t know what it is about caramel corn either — but even my dog is addicted to it.
At home I can take one of those big tins with the regular popcorn, cheddar popcorn, and caramel popcorn — remove the divider and shake it all up, and then watch as my dog eats ONLY the caramel, and spits the rest out. It’s a holiday tradition.
I liked “West Bank Story,” but I think it won only because it was a homegrown Hollywood production (it was actually the director’s final project for his MFA at UCLA) and was full of “inside” LA humor. The other live-action short nominees were all international productions. Like, I thought it was funny but it wasn’t as deep as the other nominees.
I got to see the short subjects only because I live in LA and they were showing them in a special program at the Egyptian. I wish the live-action and animated shorts got shown more widely – in this day and age of instant access to every kind of media, there’s just no excuse, dammit! Remember the “International Tournee of Animation” that used to play arthouses around the country, showing dozens of animated shorts? Whatever happened to those guys?
I wonder if oscar.com shows the nominated shorts. And if not, why not. If they don’t, how could they expect anyone but the academy to even know those films exist?
Bandwidth and rights issues, I would guess. I don’t think the Academy expects anyone else to know about these films. In fact, they have to host screenings of the nominated films in order for any portion of its membership to even be qualified to vote on them (AMPAS claims that only those who have attended these screenings can vote in the Short categories, similar rules exist for the feature Animated, Foreign Language, and Documentary categories).
As for the general public, they can get iTunes. Shorts International has made most of the nominated shorts available on Apple’s video service. I’d put the links, but I don’t work for them, nor due I want to be accused thereof. Also, there may be a DVD collection, as there was last year.
The only thing that would have made Gore’s presence more gratifying was if someone had referred to him as the President of the United States
I still refer to him as President-in-Exile Gore.
BTW, ever see the Presidential Address from an Alternate Universe on SNL? Great sketch.
Re: Jackie Earle Haley:
I’ll start losing more hair, asap.
They sell razors out here.